"A nail is driven out by another nail. Habit is overcome by habit."
"By burning Luther's books you may rid your bookshelves of him, but you will not rid men's minds of him."
"I doubt if a single individual could be found from the whole of mankind free from some form of insanity. The only difference is one of degree. A man who sees a gourd and takes it for his wife is called insane because this happens to very few people."
"If you keep thinking about what you want to do or what you hope will happen, you don't do it, and it won't happen."
"Human affairs are so obscure and various that nothing can be clearly known.'
"Humility is truth."
Major Works:
Enchiridion Militis Christiani (published 1503)
On the Education of Children (written 1506-1509)
Praise of Folly (Paris, published 1511)
Julius Excluded from Heaven (written 1513-1514)
Institutis Principia Christiani (Basel, 1516)
Erasmus's New Testament (published 1516)
The Complaint of Peace (Louvain, published 1517)
The Antibarbarians (published 1520)
The first part of Hyperaspistes (published 1526)
The second part of Hyperaspistes (published 1527)
Small Catechism (published 1529)
On Repairing the Unity of the Church (published 1533)
Major Works: